Square Enix Trademarks Hitman: Absolution for Rumored E3 Reveal

After five years, the fifth game in the Hitman series could finally have a name.

It's been a well-known fact that the Hitman series is getting a fifth installment, but developer IO Interactive and publisher Square Enix have remained tight-lipped concerning any details on the game, including the title. However, with a recent filing with the OHIM (which I can't help but pronounce as "Oh, him"), the EU's trademark and copywrite division, Square Enix seems to have finally given us something to call the upcoming stealth game: Hitman: Absolution.

It certainly sounds like the title of a Hitman game, following in the vein of previous titles Silent Assassin, Contracts, and Blood Money. It also comes at an appropriate time, if the game is planned for a June E3 reveal, at which the recent Hitman ARG seems to point.

The ARG also revealed what little information we have on the game, and when I say very little, I mean very little. Pretty much just that Agent 47, the protagonist of the previous games, will again be the lead role, so no surprises there. There's also been some speculation that the game will have something to do with Toronto, Canada, but it's not exactly what I would call solid.

A new Hitman game is certainly something to get excited about. The last one, Blood Money, game out in 2006, and introduced the staging of lethal 'accidents' and food poisonings to the series, which really makes you feel like a stealthy angel of death.

How do you top that? Allowing the player to rig up elaborate Rube Goldberg death machines?

Actually, that would be pretty awesome. You hear that, IO Interactive? Rube Goldberg death machines.